Pioneers edged by Strath Haven

NETHER PROVIDENCE – Unable to move and unable to hide a look of intense pain, Jessica Borbee remained sprawled on her back near the Strath Haven bench.

A trainer tried to massage bad cramps out of the Panthers’ superb midfielder’s calves, and minutes later, Borbee emerged from a post-game team huddle with a bag of ice attached to her leg.

Just another day at the office for the best player on the stingiest defense in the Central League. Tasked with shutting down a potent Conestoga offense, Borbee, defender Casey Oehler and goalie Caroline Boyd headlined a group that never wilted against the Pioneers en route to a key 1-0 Central League win Friday afternoon.

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“The whole season, we’ve been known for our strong defense,” said Borbee, who easily stood out as the best and most consistent player on the field as both an offensive and defensive force. “What we’re really good at is playing a team defense. We start from our forwards and we end with our goalie. We all give 100 percent, and (Friday), (Boyd) played amazing. She had so many crucial saves and she really helped us out with that.”

Without Boyd’s help in the early going, it’s unlikely that the Panthers (11-0-1, 8-0-0 Central League) would have remained within striking distance of the Pioneers (10-3-0, 5-3-0) as Conestoga threatened to bury Haven with multiple scoring opportunities. The sophomore stopped eight first-half attempts to give the sluggish Panthers the jolt they needed to round into the form that’s helped them make their somewhat surprising surge to the top of the league. Boyd admitted to being taken aback by the amount of shots she saw in the first half, but it was a challenge she seemed glad to take on.

“I was a little bit surprised, but I knew that we had it together,” said Boyd, who turned in her seventh goose egg of the season. “I knew that we could do it, so I kept my composure.”

That composure paid off in the long run, especially when Kristen Baschoff gave Boyd and Haven a lead it would never relinquish with 2:27 to go. Katie Sherry fired a crossing pass toward the net, and Baschoff was there to send the ball past Conestoga goalie Chloe Johnson (four saves) for the game’s lone marker. Unable to free herself from a Pioneers defense that packed in a lot of its defense in front of Johnson for much of the game, Baschoff finally found a sliver of room in front of the net just in the nick of time for the Panthers.

“Katie Sherry had it on the sideline...she got it through and sent it across, and I was just there to finish it,” Baschoff said. “But she gets most of the credit for that because she worked so hard at it. It was really smart to send it across. I just stayed in my position and hit it in.”

For their part, the defending league champion Pioneers fell to a combination of bad luck and being just out of reach at other times for the second time in as many days against teams near the top of the league. Less than 24 hours after dropping a heartbreaker by that same 1-0 margin to a streaking Haverford team, Conestoga again couldn’t find offensive answers to solve Boyd and the Panther defense. Shortly after Baschoff tallied for the Panthers, Pioneers sophomore Olivier Everts had a breakaway with teammate Karla Di Pietro, but while Everts’ pass to Di Pietro fooled Boyd, the ball jumped over Di Pietro’s stick at the last second and skipped harmlessly next to the Panthers’ goal.

“Oh my gosh, it was a killer,” Pioneers standout midfielder Hamblett said of the missed opportunity. “It’s definitely tough playing against good defenses, That’s nothing to sell short on our offense. Our offense is great and we just need to take this, respond to it, and keep playing the way we can play. I know we can do it. I’m so proud of everyone and they should be happy with the way they played. The past is the past and we’re just going to go from here.”

Making matters worse for Conestoga is that it lost a pair of games against teams with who the Pioneers are jockeying for positioning atop the league. In less than a day, the Pioneers fell from a tie for second into fourth place in the league, and while they’ll have a chance to make up some of that ground next Thursday against Garnet Valley, Hamblett admitted that losing to the Fords and Panthers is a bit tougher to swallow.

“Obviously it’s a mental game, but it’s how we respond to this. It’s a clean slate from here out. We’re not going to think about the past and go from here,” Hamblett said.

How far that will be for the Panthers and Pioneers remains to be seen, but if the play Friday was any indicator, both of their seasons will continue into the District One tournament.